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Re:Show HN: Ask a Dev by dvt on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @08:07PM (#16321483)
I am admittedly stretching the argument thin, but I still hope you see my point.
Re:Show HN: Ask a Dev by chrismcb on Wednesday February 07, 2018 @11:52PM (#16330280)
I'm not really sure what your point was. But you seem to think that doing something better is not solving a problem. Sure it is, just a slightly doesn't problem. Your car analogy... The original problem was a carriage needed house to be pulled, the solution was the combustible engine. The next problem was the engine want fast enough. Then the engine used too much gas. Then the problem was it cost too much. Perhaps working on the 20th iteration of the engine isn't as hard as inventing the engine in the first place, but there are still problems to be solved, and value to be added. Sure, the winner isn't always better, sometimes they just have better marketers. But most of your original examples the succeeder did something better. Yahoo want a search engine and it was noisy. Google was simple and it find stuff. MySpace had a spam problem. Sometimes the new thing is just easier to use, or looks nicer, or it does one small thing the other doesn't.
Re:Show HN: Ask a Dev by brucephillips on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @08:42PM (#16321638)
I don't. What's the difference between solving a problem and finding a better way of doing things?
Re:Show HN: Ask a Dev by sooheon on Tuesday February 06, 2018 @11:02PM (#16322171)
Whenever you can make a point by stretching an analogy to an extreme, I think it's possible to imagine stretching the analogy the other direction. In this case, the distinction seems to be a matter of degrees, rather than a fundamental difference.